Posted on 01/29/2022 4:33:58 AM PST by caww
I’m here in Western Pa and the suns been shinning all day. Initially the models showed we’d get some of this storm but so far it’s past us by...
NJ I think.
You are 100% right about the news sector becoming so competitive that they have to out-sensationalize each other. Growing up, the local 6 and 11 o'clock news were rather staid affairs. The anchors soberly intoned the news of the day with very little fluff. The TV weathermen actually drew isobars and wind speed symbols on their maps in chalk or magic marker along with barometric readings and just assumed the folks at home knew what they meant.
In the mid 1980s, Channel 7 out of Boston started with the whiz-bang graphics and leading the news with whatever violent crime was occurring with fast-paced videos backed with police sirens and loud dramatic music. The others quickly followed suit.
It's all noise now and I blissfully tune it all out. Right now I'm just watching the snow fall out my window with some music playing. Nothing to do but Freep and read some books. I know for a fact that most of the rest of my family up in Boston are glued to the TV 24/7 focused on hysterical local coverage of the storm that is occurring right outside their windows. I never understood that. Open up the curtains, raise the blinds and observe what is happening for yourself.
Anyway, the below is how we used to get our TV weather:
It’s all fun and games until you hitch a ride on a car on a snowy street and damage the side-view mirror. :-P
I just checked the inventory of snow shovels in the Home Depot in Baton Rouge, and they are completely out. None to be found. Good thing I don’t live there. /sarc
The issue with that November storm a few years ago was that it was more severe than expected. It probably would have been OK if everyone who drove to work that morning was in a normal car or SUV, but every time I got caught on a suburban road at a standstill I could see that the delay was caused by a work van or rear-wheel drive car that couldn’t move up even the tiniest grade in the snow.
WHAT'S MY DOG DOING IN NJ? !!!!!
Looks like we have about three inches so far in Central NY. Looking at the map, I seem to be a few miles from the edge of the snow cloud.
Stay warm and safe everyone! and may your power always remain!
I prefer that old way; that guy put his credibility on the line. Now we get a million excuses why they blow their calls, and even get varying forecasts from the same person (”The European model says 3”, the Australian model says 7”, and the Chilean model says 16” - so we can expect from 3 to 16 inches...”).
I believe a lot of it is competition with cable news/24 hour news cycles; that seems to be what drives reporters to sit in canoes in 6” of water and now we can expect “reporters” to stand in front of the highest snowdrifts they can find for the cameras.
Or break the upper hinges on the back doors of a van by the local deli (when all the room on the bumper was taken by other kids so some reach for the ladder attached to one of the doors); the last thing you see before fleeing is the drivers head whip around in response to the icy blast on his neck as his doors peel back/outward like leaves of lettuce...
Kids today are such wimps...
Yeah, lots of houses on the CT shore got jacked up after Sandy:
https://www.ctpost.com/local/article/Sandy-a-game-changer-for-shoreline-living-4928491.php
Were those year-round homes? One problem in NJ is that higher taxes chased many residents to the shore, where summer homes were winterized and new constructions were for year-round inhabitants; the roadways (such as the Garden State Parkway, which doesn’t even allow commercial vehicles for most of its length) weren’t designed for year-round commuter traffic, and the sleepy shore towns didn’t have a lot of snow removal gear.
Some of the fixes after Sandy were ugly as sin, as they elevated houses and they now stood atop empty cinderblock bases; instead of four to six steps up to the front door, they now had flights of twenty stairs or more - it looks ridiculous.
"Long Beach Island"
Central New Jersey coast - it's a barrier island,
similar to the Outer Banks of North Carolina, but not as big.
Barnegat Lighthouse
Son says Cape Cod power is out.
That's a relatively recent phenomenon. It used to be that weather actually had to happen before things got cancelled. More than a few times, we went to school with a big snow in the forecast only to be pulled out around noontime with the storm already in progress. I remember being in the classroom and we all cheered when we saw the yellow school buses pulling around the school at 10:30 or 11 in the morning as we knew that the principal was about to announce an early closure. The teacher would frown and assign us homework nonetheless.
This famously happened in the big February 1978 storm that shut down most of New England for days. We went to school that morning and were let out around noontime. By then, the gusts were approaching hurricane force and the wall of snow hit mid afternoon. There were thousands of cars stranded in the highways and it took the National Guard to get them out. All those poor people had to go to work that morning and their bosses kept them working until it was too late to get home safely.
This was still a culture where managers were judged on how well they kept their worker bees toiling at their desks and keeping them working through a storm was considered a feather in their cap. I experienced this for myself when I first got into management in the early 1990s. At the time, I managed a team of field technicians and as a snowstorm moved into the area, I told all my technicians to finish the call they were at and go home. All of them got home safely and I thought I did a good thing. Well I got seriously reamed out the next day by my regional manager. The only time in my career I was screamed at and had my job threatened.
Pat, I was clueless re LBI also. Some are universally (almost) recognizable but many local short cuts not readily known outside the geographic area
THAT’S ALL FOR NOW FOLKS.....WILL ADD MORE LATER!
CAWW
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